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New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science (NMMNHS) is announcing the topic for this the 2018 NatureScapes Annual Photo competition – Clouds.

Photographs can be submitted to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in August 2018.

“Photographers can turn their focus skyward for submissions this year,” said Ayesha Burdett, Bioscience Curator. “We are big sky country with legendary sunrises, sunsets and cloud formations, so this year’s competition will undoubtedly be a visual feast.”

Each year the NatureScapes gallery sponsors a photo contest encouraging contestants to examine and understand the New Mexico’s natural beauty. This year’s theme, “Clouds” invites photographers to explore and re-discover the nature in the sky. This year’s winning photographs will be hang in the gallery from October 20 through January 19, 2019.

(Albuquerque, NM) – In conjunction with the world-class Da Vinci—The Genius exhibition at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science from February 10 through July 29, 2018, the museum is hosting many da Vinci-related events. The events include $5 First Fridays, adult party nights, lectures, and panel discussions.

On the first Friday of each month, the Museum offers themed $5 First Fridays:

The $22 da Vinci exhibition admission will be discounted by $5 during the evening activities held from 5:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. During Da Vinci—The Genius, each night focuses on a different area of the exhibition.

February 2: Preparing for da Vinci | Preview fun activities available at events during the exhibition.

(Albuquerque, NM) – Evidence for water-deposited sedimentary rocks discovered on Mars by the NASA Rovers, and small iron concretions called ‘blueberries’ found on the Red Planet, will be discussed by University of Utah professor, Marjorie A. Chan, Ph.D. She will also discuss the water-deposited sedimentary rocks that occur here in New Mexico and other parts of the Southwest.

The lecture is Wednesday January 31 from 6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. at the museum. General admission tickets for the lecture are $7, ($6 members, $4 students). Purchase lecture tickets at NMnaturalhistory.org or (if seats are available) at the door. Doors open at 5:45pm at the Museum located at 1801 Mountain Rd NW just east of Old Town Plaza in Albuquerque.

Visitors to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science can experience what it is like to steer the Mars Rover at the Mars Rover Exhibition.

(Albuquerque, NM) – Da Vinci—The Genius opens at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science two weeks from today at 9am on Saturday, February 10, 2018.This world class exhibition from Grande Exhibitions remains on display at the Museum daily from 9am-5pm through July 29, 2018.

Da Vinci – The Genius demonstrates the full scope of Leonardo da Vinci’s remarkable genius as an inventor, artist, anatomist, sculptor, engineer, musician and architect. Guests will enjoy many unique pieces including life-size machine inventions, entertaining animations of da Vinci’s most notable Renaissance works and an eye-opening, in-depth analysis of his most famous piece, “Mona Lisa.” Visitors will be able to push, pull, crank and interact with many of these exhibits for a hands-on understanding of the scientific principles behind them.

(Albuquerque, NM) – In the early morning hours of Wednesday, January 31, a rare astronomical concurrence of events will include a full moon, a Supermoon and a Blue Moon that will be totally eclipsed! Early risers can experience this phenomenon at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science early that morning from 5 – 7 a.m. (weather permitting)

The phrase ‘Blue Moon’ has nothing to do with the color of the moon. The term is used to describe a second full moon during the same month. This ‘Blue Moon’ will turn red, which is what happens when there’s a total lunar eclipse.

This is a rare astronomical event: the last Blue Moon total eclipse was in 1866 and the next one will be in 2028. Enhancing the phenomenon will be the fact this is also a Supermoon, where the moon is as close to the Earth as it gets. The next time all of the same elements come together will be in 2037.

(Albuquerque, NM) – In anticipation of the February 10 opening of a blockbuster exhibition about Leonardo da Vinci, the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science is offering enjoyable family activities to introduce visitors to this well-known Renaissance artist, inventor, engineer, scientist, naturalist, and life-long learner. This orientation to the topics that will be covered in the upcoming exhibition will give each family member an opportunity to discover their own muse and interests through the eyes of one of the greatest minds of the last five hundred years.

The evening will include hands-on activities, as well as information regarding future programs and the exhibition itself, tips for visiting the exhibition with different ages, and sources for more study and reading so that families will get the most out of their visiting experience.

Also during the $5 First Friday event on February 2, find out how to save half-off admission to the... Read More...

(Albuquerque, NM) – There is an astronomical trifecta happening January 31 – a Super Blue Moon Eclipse. On that morning, the moon will be full and is both a Super Moon and Blue Moon and it will also be totally eclipsed! During the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science’s $5 First Friday event on January 5 there will be a preview event of this astronomical phenomenon convergence.

Each First Friday, the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science is open in the evening and focuses on a topic in science. During this $5 First Friday, museum patrons will learn all about the lunar coincidence happening in the sky on the morning of January 31 before sunrise. The motions of the moon and Earth will come together for this very unusual lunar event, and all will be explained so that you can prepare, enjoy, and understand what is happening. The museum will also have telescopes available to see the eclipse... Read More...

(Albuquerque, NM) -- A 245 million-year-old fossil horseshoe crab recently discovered in Idaho has been named Vaderlimulus because the animal’s shield head resembles the helmet worn by Darth Vader from the Star Wars film series. Paleontologists from the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque (Allan J Lerner, Spencer G. Lucas) and the University of Colorado at Denver (Martin Lockley) just published a scientific article describing the extinct fossil horseshoe crab. Their findings were published in the latest issue of the German paleontological journal Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie, which is the world’s oldest paleontological journal.

Vaderlimulus is the first North American fossil horseshoe crab from rocks of the Triassic Period. The Triassic was the first period of the Mesozoic Era (252 to 201 million years ago). Dinosaurs and mammals were... Read More...

(Albuquerque, NM) – It is now easier for amateur explorers to find and identify treasures in our state or where they live, thanks to a new book written by New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science Educator Michael Sanchez.

The book, entitled “Natural History Collector: Hunt, Discover, Learn!” is full of expert tips on how to start, catalogue, care for and display your collections. Sections focus on: rocks and minerals; animal and bird tracks; seashells, fossils, insects, and plants. The book targets elementary through mid-school students. Each segment of Natural History Collector offers guidance on where to look for objects and what to look for. Each section includes a specific project like growing your own crystals, collecting rocks and minerals by region, making casts of animal tracks, pinning insects, drying, pressing and mounting plants.

(Albuquerque, NM) -- The New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science will be filled with musical sounds on the evening of December 8. Live musicians will perform in the final event associated with the museum’s current exhibition Wild Music: Songs & Sounds of Nature.Two groups will be sending joyous music throughout the museum. The Young Musicians Initiative (YMI) will perform at 6 p.m. and de Profundis, an acapella men’s group, will sing at 8 p.m. in the atrium.

The Young Musicians Initiative utilizes music to help strengthen communities, schools and families with goals of keeping kids in school and providing incentives to learn. De Profundis is celebrating their 24th season of sharing “the warm silken sounds of male voices in harmony.”

(Albuquerque, NM) – Keep your young explorers engaged and active this winter with one of the day-long Young Explorers Winter Camps at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque. The camps start December 18th and run through January 2nd. All camps are for children in grades Kindergarten through 5th.

“There is something engaging and educational offered in each one of these well-crafted Winter Camp modules,” said the Museum Executive Director Margie Marino. “This year we can offer 10 camps with topics as diverse as Leonardo da Vinci, in anticipation of the upcoming blockbuster Da Vinci—The Genius exhibition coming in February of next year, to astronomical adventures, winter garden habitat, and tracking animals.”

The Winter Camps run from 9:00AM-4:00PM. There is a day care option also for students until 5:00PM. Online... Read More...

(Albuquerque, NM) –The possibility of people flying, like birds, mystified man until he figured out how to do it. Centuries before the American Wright brothers launched their flying machine, acclaimed Italian genius Leonardo da Vinci worked to find a practical solution to the challenge of flight. He studied the flights and physical structure of birds, making detailed drawings of flight and several mechanical wing devices. He designed many mechanical devices, including parachutes. About 1485, da Vinci drew detailed plans for a human-powered ornithopter, a wing-flapping device intended to fly. The image he presented is a powerful one, however there is no evidence da Vinci ever tried to build such a device.

The journey to reach the stars began with our earliest dreams of flying and led to landing on the moon and sending a probe to Pluto. But that’s only the beginning. The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science DynaTheater... Read More...

(Albuquerque, NM) – Who will build the amazing future of our human race? That question sparks a giant-screen adventure unlike any other in DREAM BIG: Engineering Our World, an epically fun tour of inspiration through the visionary advances made by yesterday’s, today’s – and most thrillingly of all, tomorrow’s – engineers. This film is the perfect encapsulation of what engineering is all about: ordinary people finding ways to defy the impossible and change the world, and their own lives, in the process.

As part of its ongoing commitment to STEAM education programming (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics) the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science is hosting the film Dream Big-Engineering our World, a heartfelt story of human ingenuity, free with museum admission, Saturday November 18th and bringing in a team of STEAM amd engineering to ... Read More...